Loaded Sweet Potato Skins

Enjoy a big plate of extra crispy, extra loaded sweet potato skins in no time! This game-time favorite is hard to resist.

Football season is here. One of my favorite times of the year for the main reason being: snacks. Snack foods galore. An excuse to make a meal out of snacks and appetizers and dips and beer. Does life get any better?

I am absolutely not affiliated with this company, but have you ever tried these? A relatively healthy choice compared to anything else you’ll find on the shelves these days. I’ve seen them at Wegman’s, Acme, and Whole Foods. Highly recommended.

Speaking of sweet potato snacks, I made these loaded sweet potato skins for the Eagles game last weekend. I wasn’t planning to share the recipe because let’s face it… they’re just potato skins. But that’s exactly why I should share this recipe: cheesy, bacon-topped potato skin goodness. The plate disappeared before 1st quarter had ended.

But seriously. A great potato skin is really everything you want out of comfort food/game food grub. Salty and crispy, with enough starchy weight to satisfy your hunger. My ideal potato skin is cut thin so that it’s not just a twice-baked potato. Nor is it a pencil thin, crunchy piece of potato skin. How disappointing. Rather, the potato should be cooked just right with the best of the best toppings. Crispy real bacon, not bits out of a can. Sour cream, chives, and a whole lotta melted cheese.

And if you love potato skins as much as I do, you have to try them with sweet potatoes. Dare I say they’re even better than regular potato skins. Plus you get all the fiber, vitamin A, and other good stuff. Orange for the win.

Loaded sweet potato skins are so simple. The potatoes are hollowed out, leaving just enough edge, then filled back up with the mashed sweet potato. I highly recommend mashing the sweet potatoes with a little milk to make the filling smooth and extra creamy. Top the filled skins with cheese, bake, add bacon, enjoy.

Crunch, crunch, crunch. The trick for their crisp? After hollowing out the skins, drizzle them with a little olive oil. Or, as I like to call it, the “crisp maker.” Don’t leave it out! Once drizzled, bake the potato skins for about 10 minutes before filling them.

Voila! Extra crispy skins.

When I’m feeling like something a little healthier, I add a little garlicky spinach to the filling. This is how I do it: three handfuls of spinach cooked down on the stove with 1 clove of minced garlic and 1 Tablespoon of olive oil. Mash this into the sweet potato filling and fill the hollowed out skins as directed below. Then, I usually top each filled skin with 1 Tablespoon of shredded cheese. And I skip the bacon. Bake, and enjoy with a salad – makes a great, meat-free healthy meal. Try it!

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400F degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Pierce each sweet potato a few times and bake for 40-50 minutes or until soft. Allow the potatoes to cool slightly. Slice potatoes in half lengthwise.

Reduce oven temperature to 375F degrees. Scoop out sweet potato flesh, leaving a thin layer of sweet potato inside, and add flesh to a medium bowl. Place skins back on the baking sheet face up, drizzle with olive oil and bake for 10 minutes.

Mash the sweet potato flesh with milk, salt, and pepper until smooth and creamy. After 10 minutes, remove the skins from the oven. Fill each with an equal amount of mashed sweet potato and top each with cheese. Bake for 15 minutes until the cheese is melted. Remove from the oven and top with bacon. Serve with sour cream and chopped chives, if desired.

Skins are best enjoyed immediately. Cover leftovers tightly and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Recipe Notes:

Buttermilk, whole milk, or half-and-half is best. Try to avoid low fat milks. You want a very thick, creamy mash.

I am not a fan of football, but I am a huge fan of snacks! I might even drop by a football viewing party just for the snacks! These babies look SO good!! I can imagine myself devouring these. I love potato skin.

Gorgeous! I would stare at these skins and forget to eat them! So pretty! Pinned!
PS: I know your wedding is this weekend and I am so excited for you! Have a blast, Sally! Can’t wait to see the photos! 🙂

Sally- I had surgery yesterday, and am supposed to be resting as a side effect is pretty dramatic vertigo. But darn your blog… I have been laying in bed for days thinking about these potato skins, and just couldn’t hold back. I already made my coffee this morning with homemade cinnamon whipped cream and your INSANE salted Carmel, and now I’m teetering around my kitchen like a drunkard making these. In all seriousness, your blog has been a bit life changing for me. I forgot how much joy cooking and baking brought to my life, and your recipes have inspired me to return to it. Every. Single. Thing. On your blog and in your cookbook is amazing. The joy I get from preparing things and sharing with friends and family is overwhelming. And my coworkers are over the moon about my almost daily baked goods I bring to the office. I hope you understand that the work you are doing is not just bringing delicious food to people, but truly bringing a profound forgotten happiness to my life. Thank you, my dear.

Sarah, I am saving this comment. I feel like printing it out and putting it on my desk. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for every single word. I am SO humbled and honored to read that my recipes bring you so much joy and happiness, especially during challenging times. Thank you thank you. Your words are cherished. Don’t be a stranger, let me know all the recipes you try.

If I were to list all the recipes from your site I’ve tried, I might run out of space. 🙂 This weekend I was commissioned to make 200 macarons for a wedding, and I surprised the bride with a quadruple batch of your apple pie bars. They made her cry. 🙂 My four year old has been begging me for a month to make your cake batter chocolate chip cookies, so we tackled those last night. I’ve made your blueberry muffins, your Nutella-stuffed cinnamon sugar muffins (holy Lord), your cheesy garlic breadsticks (double holy Lord), your margherita pizza with whole wheat crust, your blackberry apple muffins, your blueberry scones, lemon poppyseed scones, your Nutella-swirled peanut butter banana bread, your white chocolate pumpkin snickerdoodles… and I’m surely forgetting others. I plan to try a few more things today while I’m still off work and kidless, and frankly don’t know where to start! I can’t fathom how much work went into your cookbook, but I will add my name to the list of beggars for a second.

Make these and chicken wings for a semi-healthy night of football watching. These are great! I mixed some of the cheese into the sweet potato mash to give it a little more body. Will definitely make again. Thanks for sharing.

These look absolutely fabulous, but I just have to say that the potatoes in the picture are YAMS – NOT Sweet Potatoes!!! Yams are much oranger, richer and more delicious, while sweet potatoes are pale yellow and much milder. 🙂

I am SO making this tonight! It’s the first time I am going to make and eat sweet patatoes. But I think this is a good way to start my ‘adventure’ with sweet patatoes. Just one question. Is your oven on gas or is it electrical. I have an electrical oven and I want to get this recipe RIGHT and I know that the temperatures are a bit different with these ovens. Do you have some imput on this? Thank you!

Sally, these look so incredibly yummy! I’m thinking these are super bowl food right here. Do you think I could use red potatoes instead of sweet? I need to use up some red potatoes. I SO value your input on this, thank you!

I was excited to make these but found that the sweet potatoes just tasted odd as potato skins. Too sweet for the savory toppings. Maybe it was the specific type I bought, which seemed more suited to be mashed with butter and cinnamon. Thanks, in any case!

I tried these tonight and they were delicious! I added garlic and smoked paprika when mixing the sweet potato together. And my bf doesn’t eat pork so I used turkey bacon. Even without the sour cream, which I love but forgot to buy, these were so tasty! I was skeptical about adding the cheese but in the end it all came together. 😀

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I’m Sally, a cookbook author, photographer, and blogger. My goal is to give you the confidence and knowledge to cook and bake from scratch while providing quality recipes and plenty of pictures. Grab a cookie, take a seat, and have fun exploring! more about Sally